Sinn Fein Ard
Fheis 2003

Martin Ferris TD, speaking on the Agriculture and Rural Development section

In supporting this motion, I would like to emphasise the vital
importance of these issues to huge numbers of people throughout
this country and therefore to our party, especially as it strives
to make further breakthroughs in parts of the Six Counties and
throughout most of this state where we as yet have no elected
representation.

As the motion states, rural life encompasses far more than
farming although farming obviously remains a key factor and one
which is the basis for much of the other economic activity that
takes place in rural communities. The growing importance of
broader rural development issues has been highlighted by the
breakdown of traditional voting patterns in many constituencies
in this state including those where we now have TDs and
Councillors but also where a number of genuine Independent TDs
have been elected on the basis of their championing of local
communities against the withdrawal of public services, economic
decline and high levels of poverty and isolation.

While recognising the integrity of those Independents we as
republicans also know that to really set about addressing those
problems and to solving them will require that Sinn Fein becomes
the party that people in rural Ireland looks to for a radical
alternative to the current set-up. That is why it is vitally
important that we engage on every level with communities in their
struggles and why we need to develop and publicise our policies
on everything to do with the economic and social life of rural
communities.

As I said before, farming is still an important economic activity
and at present is undergoing a major crisis. Income levels have
fallen over the past period, and growing numbers of farmers are
finding themselves massively in debt with many forced out of
farming altogether. On top of all this the sector is now facing
into potentially the most radical reform to date of the Common
Agricultural Policy.

While Sinn Fein has consistently pointed to the deficiencies of
CAP, and called for changes to enhance the position of small to
medium farmers, we have as yet come to no definitive position on
the current Fischler proposals. In general terms we can see that
there might be benefits to be gained from de-coupling EU payments
from production and from increased funding for rural development,
but as yet we do not know what the final shape of the reform will
be.

The serious phase of negotiations in fact is only beginning and
that is why it is vital that the Dublin Government comes up with
concrete proposals that will help to safeguard the interests of
Irish agriculture. They have made none to date and this was
referred to this week by Commissioner Fischler who pointed out
that his proposals are not written in stone and that it was up to
the Department here to make concrete proposals.

Because of this the Fischler proposals have already undergone
some revisions that we would regard as harmful. We would also be
unhappy with the manner in which modulation is currently being
talked about. There is no guarantee for example that modulated
funds will be retained in the same country and much has already
been ear-marked for purposes other than rural development.

But even with regard to rural development the proposals as they
currently stand refer only to farm based payments connected to
environmental and animal health and welfare. There is nothing
here for what we would describe as broader rural development
encompassing the entire rural community outside of those engaged
in farming. We would argue that this is something that needs to
be altered in order that the EU live up to its own commitment to
developing rural communities in the broadest sense.

But whatever the outcome of the CAP reforms, they will still be
carried out under the broad remit of EU agricultural policy which
ever since the Mansholt Plan has been to rationalise the sector
and now to supposedly make it more responsive to the market. All
of what has been done to date has been at the expense of the
smaller farmers and the consumer. So while we will take an active
part in the debate on Fischler we do not regard CAP in whatever
form as the solution to the problems facing Irish farming.

For that to happen will require a much more radical approach
around access to land, farm incomes, farm structure and the
control of the food industry which is more and more becoming the
preserve of large corporations acting as a cartel against the
interests of both farmer and consumer. Perhaps it is time that we
looked anew at modernising the principle of co-operativism and
something similar to the old Land Commission that might intervene
in the land market to ensure access to land at reasonable prices
to smaller farmers and those wishing to enter farming.

What we also need to do is to become actively involved in local
community projects. Many of you will already have experience of
some of the EU funded rural development programmes on both sides
of the border. You will also be aware that while bringing certain
benefits, they tend to be short-term, not self-sustaining and not
genuinely democratic. The demand for this to take place, and for
a much more serious approach to be taken encompassing the sort of
issues referred to in the last part of the motion should be the
core of our policy. We are the only party that has always been
committed to real decentralisation and local control and we need
to put that to the forefront of our work in rural communities.